Monday morning in school around 8:15 -ish, a kid went into cardiac arrest in class. the EMTS came and got him, he was later air lifted to Boston. He had stopped breathing for about 7 minutes, 3 of that his heart had stopped. This morning the Vp announced that he had passed away. Then, an hour later, he came around to the classes to apologize that he had not passed away that he was on life support in Boston..I would have thought they made sure it was true or not.

Now.. How would you react?

It saddens me for what the boy and his family are going through now, and almost equally angers me, that knowing as we do that early CPR and if necessary, early defibrillation increase the victim's chances of survival tremendouysly, but in a setting like a school, it doesn't sound like people were trained. It is pretty simple training, it doesn't take long, and it should be mandatory for teachers, administrators, and even custodial and kitchen staff and available to the student body as well.
My reaction would be to ask why it took so long to get him help and tell the Principal to get the Red Cross in for some training.

Miscommunications happen a lot and I'm sure your VP feels awful that this happened. I'd cut him some slack on this one.

That is truly sad and scary, Katie.

How one responds to the situation ...

Well, what can you expect of high schoolers?

Immediate shock, denial, rubbernecking ... then somebody has the presence of mind to notify a teacher or call 911.

You're never too young to learn adult CPR - good skill to learn! It is routinely offered in high school by certified Red Cross trainers.

If you're trained correctly, who knows ... if one is lucky and falls back on one's training in a timely fashion, favorable outcomes are more likely.

Katie your reaction was very normal. I am extremely dispapointed that the teacher in this class did not perform CPR. I do believe that they are required to take these classes, and if they haven't and I was that kids parents I would be off the wall pissed off. Newly updated CPR mandates state that even if someone only does chest compressions for six minutes if they dont want to perform rescue breathing that would increase chances of survival astonomically. It used to be 15 compressions and 2 breaths. Now for an adult its 30 compressions anmd 2 breaths, because the red cross who are in charge of these things realize the chest compressions are far more important than the breaths. In every class there should be one way breathing devices at the very least. I also believe that recently enacted legislation mandates defribulators in every public building. Again something else very easy to use. The only differences in giving CPR to a victim is when the child is under 8 or a baby is the victim.

The bottom line is it doesn't make any difference how well anyone knows how to do CPR, because any CPR is better than nothign at all. School administrators should be ashamed of themselves if this child was given help by adults in the building. Very ashamed.

Yeah.. he was a sophmore, and i'm a junior so he wasnt in any of my classes.. But..

Yesterday his parents took him off life support, so he passed away. Its just good to know he isn't suffering.